“We have had a long-term, successful relationship with Community Housing Capital and this investment continues our support of its mission to create and preserve affordable housing,” said Lucas Pappas, Director of Investments for Calvert Impact Capital. “We are excited to bring new qualified investors into the impact investing space and connect them more directly with strong mission-driven organizations like Community Housing Capital.”

Diseases know no national borders and can jump from one species to another, as happened to with Ebola, MERS, SARS, and various other epidemics in recent years. Because of that, many experts think that we need to be better prepared to conduct global disease surveillance in order to prevent future outbreaks.

Previously, Grameen America had been funded largely by traditional philanthropy and concessionary capital from foundations, charitable organizations, individual investors, and commercial lenders. The organization’s adoption of impact investing as an additional means of funding comes at a time when impact investing—defined by the Global Impact Investing Network as “investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate social and environmental impact alongside a financial return”—is on the rise.

In short, the Nobel laureate's recent claim that 5.3 million Americans live below the World Bank's absolute poverty line—and thus foreign aid should be redirected back home—compares income data for the US to consumption data from developing countries. Comparing like with like suggests a very different picture.

The industry remains relatively small, with an estimated $2.6 trillion in funds that screen investments based on companies’ social and environmental impact, compared with $16.3 trillion in all funds, according to the Investment Company Institute trade group.

Researchers looked at funding data from Policy Cures and the World Health Organization for 15 neglected parasitic and infectious diseases—including HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy and meningitis—from 2007 to 2014. The data showed that the U.S. funds over half of the world’s research for these diseases, with the next closest countries being the United Kingdom at just under five percent and France at almost three percent.

The American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) said CalPERS board members have overemphasized what are called Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investments — and the sluggish returns on those investments are dragging down the pension fund’s bottom line.